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In a skirmish on the Line of Control on Tuesday, 8 January 2013, did Pakistani soldiers behead an Indian soldier or did they not? Or did they behead two soldiers and take away the head of one of them? Or did they behead one and slit the throat of another? Reports in the Indian media have left me utterly confused. I’ll let you decide. Continue reading Was an Indian soldier decapitated at the Line of Control or not?
List of signatories from both countries given at the end.
We, the undersigned Indians & Pakistanis, are deeply disturbed with the recent exchange of firings and killing of two Indian and one Pakistani soldier across the Line of Control (LoC). The incidence as reported is highly deplorable and no sane person or society can accept such unwarranted and gruesome incidences. The said incidences have a potential to derail the ongoing peace process that has shown remarkable progress in recent times in easing the visa regime, improving trade relations and securing many other confidence building measures that hold great promise for both the countries.
We are happy that the Director Generals of Military Operations (DGMOs) of both countries have spoken to each other after the incidents. We urge that suitable mechanisms must be evolved and implemented immediately to ensure that the concerned authorities on both sides are in constant touch to avert recurrence of any such incidence rather than meet after some damage is done. Continue reading Indians and Pakistanis Condemn Exchange of Fire and Killings on LoC
Guest post by MAHTAB ALAM
Akbaruddin Owaisi, an MLA of Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, who belongs to a Hyderabad-based political party All India Majlis-e-Ittihad al-Muslimin, better known as MIM, and its floor leader in the Assembly made an inflammatory speech against Hindus on 24 December 2012 at a public meeting in Adilabad District. The speech attracted widespread condemnation by Muslim activists, rightly so, apart from left, liberal individuals and organizations. Dr. Zafarul Islam Khan, President, All India Muslim Majlis e Mushawarat (AIMMM), an umbrella body of prominent Indian Muslim organizations termed it ‘a hate and rash speech’ arguing, ‘words that should never have been uttered by a responsible person, let alone a political leader, were used’.
Shabnam Hashmi, a prominent social activist and who has been relentlessly working on the issue of minority rights registered an FIR in Delhi against Owaisi stating, ‘the whole speech is highly objectionable, inflammatory and against the values of our constitution, democracy and secular values’. Similarly, FIRs were also registered in the State invoking section 295 A (for deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) and 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups) of Indian Penal Code (IPC). Owaisi was arrested finally arrested on Tuesday (8th January) and sent to 14-day judicial custody. Continue reading Now that Owaisi is in jail, how about Praveen Togadia?: Mahtab Alam
Guest post by MADHUMITA DUTTA
Policemen deployed at the proposed Posco site in Jagatsinghpur, June 2011
As I read the ‘sustainability-commitment’ page[1] on the website of Posco India Ltd, I was reminded of the images of a morning in a village square in the Ersama block of Jagatsingpur district in the Orissa. On April 1, 2008, Balithutha, a small village square, became the battle ground as hundreds of women, men, young and old tore down with their bare hands a 20 feet high bamboo barricade erected by the district police. An act of defiance by people who came in hundreds, mustering whatever they had—courage, fear, rage—to battle a giant – Posco Steel company of South Korea and the state of Odisha. They came to say ‘we disagree, we oppose’ the plans to take over the lands that we have farmed for generations. That day the sound of their voices and ululations reverberated from the small village square of Balithutha to the offices of the powerful. Continue reading Posco – Building A Better Tomorrow with Steel: Madhumita Dutta
Guest post by SNEHLATA GUPTA
Smug patriarchal pronouncements about ‘dented and painted’ women and ‘rape in India and Bharat’ brought back to me an experience I faced in the classroom some years ago.
I teach English in grades 11 and 12 in a co-ed school in Delhi. That year I had this rather ‘difficult’ boy in class. I can’t remember now how the discussion really began. The discussion got to the point where students were talking about the amount of freedom available to girls and boys and why girls have far less ‘freedom’ than boys. It was somewhere at this point that this boy stood up (unlike the regular practice of standing to speak in the classroom, I insist students should sit and talk in my class) and stated with complete confidence that ‘if girls dress so provocatively boys can’t help themselves.’
I remember being completely aghast at this blatant show of patriarchal arrogance. I went all hot and cold in the same moment. Continue reading Male students, female teachers and patriarchy in the classroom: Snehlata Gupta
This guest post by KRISHNA JHA and DHIRENDRA K JHA is an excerpt from their book, Ayodhya: The Dark Night, about the original Ayodhya conspiracy of 22 December 1949
The sound of a thud reverberated through the medieval precincts of the Babri Masjid like that of a powerful drum and jolted Muhammad Ismael, the muezzin, out of his deep slumber. He sat up, confused and scared, since the course of events outside the mosque for the last couple of weeks had not been very reassuring. For a few moments, the muezzin waited, standing still in a dark corner of the mosque, studying the shadows the way a child stares at the box-front illustration of a jigsaw puzzle before trying to join the pieces together. Continue reading The muezzin’s last call at Babri Masjid: Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K Jha
Guest post by @KOINON3A
New Friends Colony Park, 1996.
There’s a funny telepathy between people running or walking in opposite directions along a narrow jogging track. You both move to one side to avoid bumping into the other, only to find that the other person has moved in exactly the same direction you have. We exchanged half smiles at this long before we actually collided. As we approached each other, I smiled more widely as an acknowledgment of having managed to get it right and avoid each other.
His pockmarked face broke into a smile too. And in the moment he passed right by me, he reached out and grabbed my left breast hard and then moved on. Something I couldn’t have planned or thought about happened; I snapped like a brittle twig, swung around and went after him. His back was turned to me and he didn’t expect this. I hit him in the middle of his back with my fist, my keychain around my fingers giving him an additional gouge. He whirled around, surprised, the mouth now a quivering O, and went for my chest again.
Guest post by SAMEER BHAT
In Memory of the Massacre in Sopore, Kashmir, by the 94th Battalion of the Border Security Force on January 6, 1993.
[YouTube Video – Compiled from various sources – including a report by Savyasachi Jain, now with NDTV, for Eyewitness – a VHS delivered video news magazine active in the early 1990s.]
There was sound of a huge bang that morning, like someone blowing up a cartful of dynamite. Just before the cockcrow. Most of the townspeople were asleep. The dawn prayers had thin attendance, mostly because it gets very cold in January. By nine o’clock a military patrol was out, doing rounds of the main marketplace. Suddenly gunmen emerged from a narrow alley and shot random bullets at the party before quickly disappearing in the maze that old Sopore is. Taken rather off guard, the security detail ran back to their barracks only to emerge again as Frankenstein’s monsters, spitting hell fire. In the next fifty odd minutes, they murdered fifty five people in cold blood. And burnt the town down. Continue reading January 6, 1993 – A Town Torched: Remembering the Sopore Massacre Twenty Years After: Sameer Bhat
Guest post by AMRAPALI ‘TARA’ BASUMATARY
Another Report on the Gathering of the Night of 31st of December 2012/Ist January 2013 against Patriarchy in Delhi
Guest post by KAVITA, an activist with the Stree Mukti League
Translated from Hindi by Shuddhabrata Sengupta
It would be natural to expect that in the wake of the barbaric Delhi gang-rape of December 16 and subsequent popular upsurge of anger the police and the state machinery would betray a modicum of sensitivity and alertness. The reality is just the opposite of what you expect. We have heard this from many women in the past few days, and a few evenings ago, came face to face with this sad fact ourselves.
For the last few days, we (activists of the Stree Mukti League) have been going to different places in Delhi to hold meetings, demonstrations and to distribute leaflets against sexual violence. The leaflet has a contact phone number for the Stree Mukti League. Since the evening of the 1st of January this year a perverted male individual has been continuously ringing that number, abusing us, threatening us, using obscene and unprintable language. He even said ‘I know all you girls, and you cannot escape me. What I will do to you will terrify people…’, and several other things which cannot be repeated. Continue reading The Bitter Truth Regarding Delhi Police’s Womens’ Help-Line: Kavita
Guest post by NEHA DIXIT
In the last fortnight, we unlearned submission. On December 16, a 23 year old girl, just on the brink of leading a socio-economically independent life was raped in a moving bus at 9.30 at night.
We saw protests, we saw outraged masses. It is the first time in the history of this nation, when people were out on the streets on the issue of gender. For more than two weeks in a row. And it continues. Figures have been thrown at us: every 20 minutes a woman is raped in India, every third victim is a child, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
At one of these protest sites, the car parking contractor informed me that they have slashed the parking charges from 30 bucks to 10 bucks in solidarity with the girl and her family. This may be dismissed as a ‘simplistic’ contribution by those who have been accusing these protests of being ‘middle class’. But we need to hit the core, to understand the wider repercussions of the Parking contractor’s this simple act. Continue reading Unlearning submission: Neha Dixit
This song in memory of the unknown citizen is produced by Swaang, a Bombay based cultural group, whose members include actors, writers, music directors, musicians and producers “all in the grips of the market-driven Bombay film industry, but whose hearts continue to pull towards progressive politics!”
Composer – Rohit Sharma
Lyrics – Ravinder Randhawa
Singers – Rohit Sharma, Pankaj Badra, Pinky
Narration – Pravishi Das, Ravinder Randhawa
English translation of ‘Maa Nee Meri’
Mixed in every morsel,
What was that chant you kept repeating?
In the garb of concern and worry,
Why was fear the only virtue I learnt of your teaching?
Mother, I will not fear
Mother, I will not become you. Continue reading You were amongst those six; un chhay main tum bhi shamil thay: Swaang Songs
This brief has been put out by the JAMMU AND KASHMIR COALITION OF CIVIL SOCIETY
TOTAL KILLINGS
The year 2012 has just passed, and yet again like previous years, the government of Jammu and Kashmir has disgracefully claimed the year to be peaceful. This hyped peace is void of justice & peace and is packed with violence & injustice. In the year 2012 the people of Jammu and Kashmir in routine have witnessed unabated violence, human rights abuses, denial of civil and political rights, absence of mechanisms of justice, heightened militarization and surveillance. The figures of violent incidents suggest that 2012 as usual has been the year of loss, victimization, lies, mourning and pain for the people. Continue reading A review of human rights in Jammu & Kashmir in 2012: JKCCS
Guest post by IRSHADUL HAQUE
Translated from Hindi by Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Akbaruddin Owaisi, you are an enemy of Muslims. You are the kind of adversary who lurks like a snake in the grass, ready to strike at the person who cares for that patch. Your desire to provoke a confrontation between India’s 25 crore Muslims and 100 crore Hindus reminds us of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This is why Javed Akhtar has gone to the extent of calling you ‘the greatest enemy of Muslims’. I know that I am not alone when I find myself agreeing with this view. Many other Indian Muslims will be in agreement with me. Continue reading Akbaruddin Owaisi – You are an Enemy of Muslims (and Hindus)
Guest post by SWATHI SUKUMAR
Last week, I went to a bachelorette party. The party props were unbelievable to the point of being ridiculous—shot-glasses shaped like body parts, kinky trinkets, balloons in unmentionable shapes and sizes—and other items that would have made many women of another generation collapse in horror.
At the end of the party, everyone was slightly drunk and a good deal of time had been spent asking the bride-to-be embarrassing questions and cracking dirty jokes. I realized that our revelry had a close parallel in the cult classic “The Hangover”, a story of four men who go to Las Vegas to celebrate a very eventful bachelor’s party. Our party shared common themes from the script of the movie, including inebriation and the obsession with bodies, both perfect and imperfect. We missed the tiger and the stripper from the movie, but I am told that strippers are a very common feature in bachelorette parties in India.
Tigers are not common, I hope. Continue reading Notes from a bachelorette party in New India: Swathi Sukumar
The RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat (or to call him out in the way he is referred to in the Sangh – Sarsanghchalak Param Pujya Shri Mohan-ji Bhagwat-ji) has now joined the pavilion of eminent Bharatiya moustachioed misogynists. In a breathtakingly revealing statement, he has told us that rapes happen in India, not in Bharat. What he means is that rape only occurs in urban areas where the influence of Paschatya Sanskriti (western culture) leads women astray into being raped by men unable to help or control themselves in the face of the assault of women, out and about, by day and night, defying Mohan Bhageat’s Sangh-mandated Lakshman Rekha.
When an upper-caste landlord in a village claims his ‘droit de seigneur’ (land-owner’s claim) with a Dalit woman, it is not rape, it is a yagya, a time honoured shastric ritual. When husbands persuade minor wives on their ‘suhaag raat’ with a few disciplinary measures that leave them with black eyes and sore limbs, it is not rape, it is the carrying out of an Upanishadic injunction. When swamijis, babajis, acharyas and prachaks have their way with ignorant and nabalik shishyas, it is not rape, it is the partaking of the naivedyam of a woman’s body. It is the realisation of a ‘pushp ki abhilasha’, even if the pushp gets pushed around a little bit in the process. Continue reading RSS Supremo Mohan Bhagwat’s Thoughts on Rape
Guest post by PRACHEE SINHA
The curious Ways of Indian Democracy,from India Gate to the Slum Habitat
It has taken a horrific tragedy and a precious young life to stir the conscience of a nation. Or so one would like to believe! Reality may not still cater to our wishes. Our grand old civilization is also a culture of billion brutalities on its women and countless other victims. One can only hope that it changes for the better, even if a little, after what it has witnessed through the last fifteen days of the last year. Greater probability, however, is for such hopes to be belied yet again. It may take a lot more to lift the weight of an age-old way of life. After all, one would not have expected that rapes and molestations would be reported from across the country, and even from Delhi itself, right in the middle of anger, sorrow and protests that seemed to engulf the country. One would expect that the rapists and the criminals would lie low for a while till the situation returns to normal. Least of all would have one expected that women would be harassed, and one or two would even be molested, during those very protests that were taking place at the India Gate and Jantar Mantar. Continue reading Run with Gender, Hunt with Class: Prachee Sinha
Protests against Sexual Violence continue in Delhi. Earlier this morning, there was a gathering to protest against the gruesome sexual violence committed on Soni Sori while in custody in Chhattisgarh under the supervision of Ankit Garg, Superintendent of Police, Dantewada. Ankit Garg was awarded with a presidential police medal on Republic Day (January 26) in 2012.
Soni Sori’s petition at the Supreme Court is due to be heard tomorrow. Continue reading Justice for Soni Sori. Gathering at Jantar Mantar, 02/01/13
Fettering the Fourth Estate: Free Speech in 2012
A report of the Free Speech Hub of the Hoot.org
The year 2012 ended with a Kannada TV reporter, Naveen Soorinje, in jail for more than fifty days after the Karnataka High Court denied him bail. Mangalore-based Soorinje, was incarcerated from November 7, 2012 after police charged him under the UAPA and under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for reporting on the raid on a homestay party by a Hindu fundamentalist group in July. Soorinje’s bail application was rejected on December 26.
The same month, a television journalist, Nanao Singh, was shot dead in a police firing in Manipur.
In 2012, India was a grim place for free speech. It recorded the death of five journalists. Another 38 were assaulted, harassed or threatened. There were 43 instances of curbs on the Internet, 14 instances of censorship in the film and music industry, and eight instances of censorship of content in the print medium. Continue reading Fettering the fourth estate: Free Speech in 2012
The girl wasn’t aware that the Udyog Bhavan Metro station in central Delhi had been shut down. In the Metro going to Gurgaon, she needed to get down at Udyog Bhavan. Her friend was waiting in a car outside the station. She waited at the door. The train stopped too, but the gates didn’t open. The PA system — the annoying PA system of the Delhi Metro that never stops saying something or the other — fell silent. The station was deserted. Not a soul in sight.
The girl asked fellow passengers — all of us men around her — which would be the nearest station that would be open. All the options were far off. Ramakrishna Ashram station on one end, for instance, was four kms. away. “Now what?” the girl asked her friend on the phone in a tone that blamed him, in a way only lovers can. “Now what?” she kept repeating. Continue reading The epiphanic moment of the lathi charge
Two interesting articles:
Emer O’Toole in the Guardian CiF:
There’s something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India’s civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country’s culture of sexual violence, commentators here are using the event to simultaneously demonise Indian society, lionise our own, and minimise the enormity of western rape culture. [Full article]
And Ananth Krishnan in The Hindu:
The rape case was one of the most discussed topics in Chinese microblogs over the past week, prompting thousands of posts and comments. By Sunday, however, the authorities appeared to move to limit the debate: on Monday, a search for the topic triggered a message on Sina Weibo – a popular Twitter-equivalent used by more than 300 million people – saying the results could not be displayed according to regulations. The message is usually seen as an indicator of a topic being censored by the authorities. [Full article]
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 